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Withdrawal Symptoms for 1 Year

Discussion in 'Rebooting - Porn Addiction Recovery' started by saneagain, Dec 3, 2017.

  1. saneagain

    saneagain Fapstronaut

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    It happens I am having debilitating withdrawal symptoms for 1 year now.

    Insomnia, Lightheadedness / Fullness in head, dizziness, anhedonia, pressure in head, vision effects (blurry vision, super sharp vision, afterimages, visual snow), depersonalization, fatigue, clogged ears, inability to think and concentrate, headaches, muscle tension all over my body (especially head, neck, teeth), tight throat (difficulty breathing and swallowing) cracking joints (probably because of the muscle tension), tingling sensations, different forms of pain with no obvious reason, eye floaters, irritability.

    First 3 months I had 3 wet dreams per week, sometimes twice in a night. I was unable to work out for 6 months because of the pressure in chest and my head and shortness of breath. I started having nightmares or sex dreams almost every day, after having almost no dreams for years.

    After 6 months things improved slightly and I started working out and jogging.

    Frequency of wet dreams reduced to once every 2 weeks or so.

    After 1 year I am still not able to continue working on my uni degree.

    I had a 5 month hard mode streak. Then 1 MO. Then 4 months hard mode. 2 MO. Then I started MOing 1-2 times / week. No porn of course.

    I am able to get hard during sex but I feel dead inside my head. No feelings, no desire for women, no interest in having a conversation.

    I've done everything to improve. Working out, supplements, time in nature, cold showers, trying to socialize.

    How do I get out of this?
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2017
    Andre45, hsb0617, Abel100% and 2 others like this.
  2. saneagain

    saneagain Fapstronaut

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    Anyone?

    I know a handful of people who are having symptoms for a long time on this forum.

    I feel like I am losing it. This crap tortures me 24/7.
     
    Freeddom_Taker and dboy18 like this.
  3. AstronautMikeDexter

    AstronautMikeDexter Fapstronaut

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    I think you’ll have difficulty finding people here to relate. Most people who’ve been successful for long periods slowly leave the forums and those who are still here it’s an ongoing (current) struggle but they just aren’t far along the path.

    How many years did you PMO? How often?
    I’ve read a few instances of really delayed recovery. But their addictions were particularly severe.
     
  4. Just curious, how severe is severe? And how long was the delay in recovery for those stories of recovery you read? I want to know so I can have an idea I’d rate of recovery
     
  5. saneagain

    saneagain Fapstronaut

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    I probably started between 15 and 17. Until 20 it was not really excessive. It got really bad during university (when I was 20) with multiple times per day. Sometimes up to 8 or so. But not every day. I had also periods of absitinence even for months, but never experienced horrible symptoms like this. I had some withdrawals which lasted for 2-3 weeks, but they were manageable (irritability, inability to focus, muscle pain). Last year (I was 27) all those horrible symptoms came out of nowhere.

    So all in all you can say I have 7 years of excessive use.
     
    Freeddom_Taker and dboy18 like this.
  6. Single Palm Change

    Single Palm Change Fapstronaut

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    Ok, I'll bite.
    • If you do any drinking or smoking, or drugs, you gotta cut that crap out. No excuses - you want to get better, not just change addictions. Same thing with sugar. Don't eat sugar and sweets, sugar is a drug that fucks with you dopamin levels, among other unhealthy effects.
    • Insomnia: Cut away Coffee and coffeine, get regular exercise, regular sleeping/wake cycle.
    • Lightheadedness/fullness in head: Learn belly breathing. Abdominal breathing. Long, unforced breaths. Learn to let go of your breathing and feel it all the way down, all the way up. There a lots and lots of exercises and training on the interwebs. Find one (only one!) and stick with it.
    • Dizziness: Breathing should help with this too.
    • Anhedonia. This is a perpetual flatline symptom. Stop MO'ing, hard mode until it lifts.
    • Fatigue: See the above points.
    • Depersonalization: I'm guessing this is self-diagnosed. I'd say it is an effect of living in a perpetual state of worry. Seek out "free" experiences where you can be yourself and enjoy yourself. Long walks in nature. Hot steam baths. Get massages (should help with the neck and tension as well).
    • Pressure in head, vision effects (blurry vision, super sharp vision, afterimages, visual snow), clogged ears, inability to think and concentrate, headaches, muscle tension all over my body (especially head, neck, teeth), tight throat (difficulty breathing and swallowing): ALRIGHT this sounds serious- go get a brain scan first! After the brain scan comes back with nothing, here's what you do: You probably suffer from stress, physical stress is your body tensing up. This gets your neck and throat thight - this increases pressure in your head. Increased pressure in your head leads to eye and ear symptoms. The inabilty to think and concentrate is because of your mental stress. Your brain is going full speed in circles and there's no room for constructive thinking. You should start a relaxation practice right away. Yoga, Qi-gong, Feldenkrais (spelling?),any kind of relaxation practice is highly recommend for you. What can you do right now? Close your eyes, let your shoulders sink down, breathe slowly, relax from the top of your head down to your feet with every breath.
    • Cracking joints: This is not a problem my friend! This is just getting older. The carbon dioxide that is not getting transported away through the blood is concentrating in the joints, which pop when you crack them. The popping dissolves the carbondioxide into the tissue again and then it can be transported away by the blood. Logically, better bloodflow would decrease popping. But you really shouldn't worry about this one. This is so normal. One thing to strike from your list! Woo-hoo!
    • Tingling sensations: Most likely strain on the nerves due to tension in the back and neck. See above (relaxation)
    • Different forms of pain with no obvious reason: See above.
    • Eye floaters: Everybody has these, it's not a problem. No harm comes from them. Strike it from your list.
    • Irritability: Half-way due to tensing up and physical and mental stress. The other half is probably irritability covering up a lot of different emotions - nightmares and dreams would suggest this. Be open to and love yourself and the expression of your emotions. Forgive yourself and feel the emotions streaming through your body.
    Alright that was a quick rundown. Feel free to message me if you want to ask any private questions
     
  7. saneagain

    saneagain Fapstronaut

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    I appreciate your advice.

    I tried breathing excercises. Nothing helps. I am dizzy / can't focus my eyes 24/7. The depersonalization is self diagnosed, yes. It doesn't matter how you call it, brain fog or depersonalization. It is a constant, dream like state where nothing seems real and you feel like you are not in your own body. You rather feel like your eyes are flying around. Everything looks unreal and two dimensional. Emotions are numbed and you feel like your head is filled with liquid. It's like you watch the world behind a glass wall or through a fog. I am totally detached from my thoughts. It's like someone else is thinking in my head.

    An MRI of my head has been done a year ago and the doctors found nothing. Relaxation does not help. This is the whole point. I have tremor 24/7 and all the symptoms don't change no matter what I do.

    The cracking joints are absolutely not normal. When I get up and walk they crack every single time. I never had cracking joints in my life. Now every single joint is cracking for no reason. Same goes with eye floaters. I never had them, they appeared when all the other symptoms kicked in.
     
    hsb0617 and Freeddom_Taker like this.
  8. Single Palm Change

    Single Palm Change Fapstronaut

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    Breathing exercises work over time, like a few weeks of daily practice.
    If you want something that should work in one go, try the Wim Hof method.


     
    D. Jigen likes this.
  9. Kexas23

    Kexas23 Fapstronaut
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  10. Single Palm Change

    Single Palm Change Fapstronaut

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    PAWS usually comes in periods of a few days and in between you feel better. As I understand it, he's got these symptoms 24/7 for a year - it's something else
     
  11. Ocguy

    Ocguy Fapstronaut

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    If you're in orange county California I can send you to a guy that will address each issue and use frequencies to quell your symptoms.
    I've had pretty much 90 percent of the issues you have and I'm almost cured.
    Libido Is the only thing left to fix.

    The other program that helped me was Advanced Cell Training. You can Google that and contact them
    They have a weekly phone in group class, and u basically train your body to behave.

    Between frequency and that class my quality of life has improved 10 fold.

    You really need to listen to me and take care of this, you can't keep suffering. It's no way to live.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2017
    AspiringVitality likes this.
  12. saneagain

    saneagain Fapstronaut

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    I live in Europe.

    All the stuff you list like live blood analysis etc. is considered completely useless by the scientific community.

    I'll pass on paying money for quackery.
     
  13. Single Palm Change

    Single Palm Change Fapstronaut

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    Dude, are you kidding? Don't you want to take this at least a little bit serious? People are trying to help you. Don't write off something you don't know about as quackery. It helped our friend here, and he is trying to help you.

    There are many things that do work that are not recognized by the "scientific community" - NoFap for example.

    Do you want to be helped, or do you just want to shoot down any attempt and wallow in anger and self pity for the rest of your life..??

    I wrote a long list of things
    to do and look into and you only responded to the things you knew wouldn't help! What about the rest?
    I also sent you a bunch of messages so we can pinpoint the exact options you have.

    Why don't you at least pretend to want help? Why write this thread if you don't accept advice?

    I'm starting to think that you actually don't want to feel better!

    I hope this is not true
     
  14. saneagain

    saneagain Fapstronaut

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    You wrote a lot of very sound things and I am in the process of answering your message.

    Pornography addiction is slowly recognized by the scientific community as more and more studies are published. Many of them can be found on yourbrainonporn.com. It's still a relatively new phenomenon.

    In contrast to live blood analysis which has been studied by scientists and found to be useless.
     
  15. Single Palm Change

    Single Palm Change Fapstronaut

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    Yeah well, so what? I had back pain for years and the only thing that helped me was Qi-gong. I know western science doesn't accept the existance of Qi. They would rather call bio-electric energy and leave it there. What do I care about what western science thinks? It helped me tremendously, that is what matters.

    Many people are getting better everyday thanks to alternative methods. Many have found relief from illnesses that were "uncurable" in the western medical paradigm. And then again, western science writes off something like 30% of all improvement as "placebo" - sounds scientific, right?

    What you need, is a healthy dose of optimism, and wanting to get better. Placebo can work against us too, you know- this is also documented by western science.
     
    seer and LastGoodbye like this.
  16. Trips

    Trips Fapstronaut

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    Dude, all these issues can't be from PMO withdrawal after a year. You should go to the doctor.
     
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  17. PMO withdrawal is hell mate, depending how much you abused it you can have these for a long, long time. I've had some of these symptoms on and off for years whilst on nofap because of relapsing.
     
  18. Single Palm Change

    Single Palm Change Fapstronaut

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    Alright, I've seen your post about the same symptoms - do you have any digestion or gut problems? Bloating, diarrhea, constipation, gas, churning stomach?? These can impact the mood and stress the body into an alert state, never going into a relaxed mode (parasympatethic nervous system) and starting the healing process. If you have any of the symptoms of problematic digestion, I suggest you to eat probiotics and dietary fibers.
    The guts can be affected by the acute stress of PMO problems and addiction, but then the gut problems can go on for years affecting your mental health, because a stressful situation changes the environment in the guts. This means changed composition of microbes. Some of these unhealthy microbes can develop large colonies and upset the balance leading to irritable bowels and a stressed out nervous system.
     
    Bliss12, Westsidejimmy and Ocguy like this.
  19. See the thing is I have done but anecdotal to me I have noticed my digestion/gut problems almost completely dissappear when away from pmo. I used to have it terribly constant stomach problems most days and it has significantly been reduced to next to nothing at the moment.

    Yea I've heard about probiotics I need to try them. I think there is some truth to what you're saying about the gut as I've had this for years whilst on porn. When I was using and in the early stages of withdrawal I had all them; Bloating, diarrhea, constipation, gas, churning stomach.. Farts thats that were worse than zyklon B could of killed a herd of elephants. All of that for the time being has not been as severe.

    Any other advice?
     
    Westsidejimmy and Freeddom_Taker like this.
  20. I have also had pseudo dypsnea for years as well, all my moons have dissapear from my fingers and there only on the thumbs. I think my nervous system is severely damaged
     
    Freeddom_Taker and Ocguy like this.

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